Howl for Me (18 page)

Slowly, he climbed to his feet.

“Ma?” Devin called out. “You there?”

His mother’s answer was warbling, confused and intoxicated, but she was calling him. She was still alive.

Devin took a step forward. For the first time in his recent memory, his ankle didn’t pop. It was broken when he was six, but never set. It grew back crooked and gave him a limp. But now? He walked straight and tall.

“What was that thing?” Devin asked himself, taking another stop forward, and twisting his neck until it popped.

That didn’t hurt, either. Turning his head had
always
hurt. That injury was so old he didn’t even know what gave it to him.

He felt like a new person – a new wolf. Whoever it was he’d seen had healed him of everything his father had done. All those years of horror had just vanished in a flash. Just like the flash of the gun when his ma shot his dad in the stomach.

Devin looked down the hallway. It was all burned, there was no wallpaper left, no texture on the walls or the ceiling, but it was all black obsidian, as though the fire was fifteen years before, and it had all worn smooth.

“Devin?”

His mom’s voice floated from the doorway that he hadn’t realized he’d reached.

“What’re you doing?” she asked. Her voice was thick and fell over itself. “Where are the eggs?”

He looked around, but... just couldn’t remember. He had them just a moment before. Something flickered in his left eye. He lost vision for just a second, but he shook his head, and it was back.

Nothing to worry about, he thought. Everything was right. Better than right.

“I... don’t know,” he said. “No idea, actually. Was there a fire?”

When he walked into his mom’s one-room studio, there were no signs of any kind of disturbance.

“Looks like there was a fire in the hall,” he said.

“No, not that I know of, but there’s always some crack head making problems,” she replied. “Where are the eggs?”

Devin grinned. He’d never felt like this before. So alive, so strong, and so... powerful.

“I’ll go get more,” he said.

“What about the money, babe?” his mom asked. “That was the last of the money.”

He shook his head, his hair falling across his face. Somehow, he knew it didn’t matter.

“It’ll be fine,” he said. “I’ve got a plan.”

I jolted back into myself, as a bird outside Devin’s dilapidated hotel screeched.

“Oh, my God,” I gasped. “I think I saw it. I saw Blight.”

“You’re sure?” Poko asked.

Poko cocked his head to one side. He looked past me and wagged a finger at an unseen spirit. “Never mind that,” he said and then turned back to me. “You saw Jacarth? You’re sure?”

“Yeah,” I said, nodding. “He looked just like he did when I saw him at that campground with... with the bodies.”

“Hum,” Poko grunted, tapping his cane against one of the stones by his fire. “You’re sure that’s when it happened? When the great beast entered Devin?”

“Yeah,” I said, looking right into the middle of the roaring flame. “And I found out more about him. More bad things.”

Poko shifted his weight and groaned a little, then coughed softly.

“Tell me – how old was he, when the monster entered his soul?”

Devin groaned, but then resumed snoring beside us.

“Twelve,” I said in a stone cold voice. “He went out for groceries.”

Out of nowhere, I felt myself lurch to one side and then the other. My soul was fighting to get free. It had something to tell me, something to show me.

“Lily!” I heard Poko shout. I felt his hand on my arm. “Lily, be careful!”

His voice was an echo. It was just a memory.

As soon as I was looking down from the sky, I knew what I had to do. I had to find
him.

“Where are you?” I asked the lonely darkness. “I know you have to be out here, somewhere.”

I looked west first, and saw nothing except desert. I extended my gaze eastward, searching. There, on the edge of the desert, where the forests began, I saw an advancing line of flame.

Motorcycles roared, catching my attention. I streaked across the sky until I was directly over them, looking down. Two of the bikes were joined by a chain, which dragged a matte metal platform.

As my spirit settled into motion with them, I got low enough to the ground to see what they were carrying.

Joram Blight.

His eyes shot open, catching me for just a second.

It was like steel wrapped around my ankles. As soon as he saw me, I was dragged down, lower and lower. I struggled, fighting against the horrible gravity pulling me down, thrashing my invisible body.

He smiled a grim, awful smile, and then closed his eyes again, completely at peace.

Nothing in the entire world – nothing I’d seen in Devin’s memories – no fight I’d seen Damon fight had ever horrified me as much as that smile.

Joram Blight just let me go. And that’s what it was. Compared to him, I was nothing. A powerless, Fae child, floating around in the air, playing at power I didn’t understand.

Joram Blight understood it perfectly. No. He didn’t
understand
power – he
was
power.

“Lily!” My shoulders shook.

“Lily, come back to me,” Poko said, rattling me so hard that I thought he was going to give me whiplash. “You were gone. I saw your face go pale and your lips go white. I was afraid you’d been taken.”

“I was,” I said. “But then, he let me go.”

Poko frowned, deep lines framing his mouth, all the way to his chin.

“You saw him then?” he asked. “Where?”

“Close,” I said. “We don’t have much time.”

“Go, then,” Poko said, his voice halting. “Get Damon. Get Hunter. We have another companion coming from Scagg’s Valley, who you may know. An old man, a shaman, called Wilton. Though, he’s more to attend to me, than to fight.”

“Wilton?” I said, gathering myself. I started toward the mouth of the cave. “Why would he be coming?” I knew the answer. I hated the answer, but I knew it.

“Poko, are you saying that you’re—”

“I am very old, child. Older than you know. Older than I know. But I am at peace. I know my pack is in good hands. I can go with the spirits now, and I can go happily. Don’t worry yourself about this. This old body has some time left. Go, Lily. Bring Damon.”

For the second time in about an hour, I choked back tears. Just the thought of being without Poko was too much. I turned so he wouldn’t see the tears he didn’t want me crying, but I’m sure he knew what I was doing.

“Lily,” he called out, just as they ran down my face with a vengeance. “I also know what you’ve told only Damon. I saw the pride in your eyes, and in his. I never imagined I’d be such a... a happy man, when my time came, to join the spirits.”

I turned back and ran to his side, wrapping my arms around his tiny frame. He stroked my hair and kissed my cheek.

“Everything is fine, dear child,” Poko said. “We will have time to say our goodbyes. And I’ll be with you, always, watching you and Damon, and the young wolf growing in your belly. He’s a boy, you know.” A smile stretched across his thin face. “Of course you know.”

I rocked back on my heels, looking him in the face.

“Thank you for everything, Poko,” I said. “I don’t even want to imagine what my life would have been like...”

He chuckled.

“Don’t thank me for that,” he said. “I don’t make fate. Thank the world for existing in the first place. She’s listening to you. For your kind, she’s always listening. Now go, and bring back my heir.”

I gave him one last squeeze, took his ancient hand, and touched it to my cheek. He smiled gently at me with such kindness, that my heart melted all over again.

“I love you, too, Lily,” he said, without my having said it first. He must’ve felt it in what I did. “You’ve given me everything I’ve ever wanted. You’ve made an old man’s last days ones of peace. Now go. We’ve got a fight to end before we can say those goodbyes.”

As I ran to my car, my first thought was that I hoped those goodbyes never came. A wolf howled in the distance.

I looked at the moon, as it dipped about halfway below the horizon, and dawn started to gray the sky. Even when his body was gone, we’d still be able to hear him howl, I realized. That helped a little.

Suddenly, it struck me to do just what Poko said – to talk to the earth.

I froze, with my hand on the handle of the driver door.

“Whatever happens,” I said, my cheeks burning with a feeling of embarrassment for a moment, before I felt a strange, soothing coolness of peace slide over me. “Let us... Let us have a chance to say goodbye.”

As soon as I finished, I felt warm, like someone was holding me. And then it was gone, invisible arms slipping up, and off my shoulders.

Swallowing hard, I climbed up, turned on the engine, and decided I was done with tears. It was time for me to be as tough as I needed to be.

––––––––

“N
o time,” I said, opening the door and starting to talk, as soon as I was in. “We gotta go.”

No one was around. I shook my head. Of course they weren’t up. It was just past six in the morning when I got home. What did I think this was? I heard a groan and a bedframe squeak from down the hall, where Damon and I slept.

“Damon?” I called out. “Hurry up, get Hunter. We gotta go. Poko wants us all to go there and get ready, together. Damon? Where are you?”

The squeaking kept on, and I realized it was coming from the other direction. I pursed my lips and put my hands on my hips. It was
really
hard not to laugh.

Damon’s head popped out of our bedroom, and his face immediately lit up. “Hey!” he said. “Everything okay at the cave?”

I shook my head.

“He’s coming. We gotta go. Poko thinks it won’t be long, before...”

I had to stop myself from saying “He’s gonna be dead,” and keep my mind on what mattered right then.

“Before what? What’s the rush? Cat showed up a few minutes ago, and, er...”

He trailed off, to a short chorus of squeaking bed, and a groan that was a little louder than it was probably meant to be. I blushed, then Damon laughed, and reeled me in for a kiss.

“We
really
don’t have time for that,” I said. “We need to get to Poko.”

The squeaking got really fast for a second. The fact that Damon and I got to laugh about something for a second let me release just a little tension.

I knew it was going to be okay – I just knew it – but, I also wasn’t so stupid to think there weren’t going to be a lot of wounds, and a lot of loss.

When Hunter finally emerged from the back of the house, he didn’t even bother to pretend he was embarrassed. He and Damon just went straight to work.

It was kind of amazing to watch Hunter and Damon get ready. They looked like a pair of Rambos, packing up to take on the entire Viet Cong at once. I guess it made sense, being as how none of us really knew what we were up against, but Hunter was
for real
.

In the end, I counted six big, serious-as-shit knives. Four on his legs, two across his chest, and all of them were big, serrated, mean-looking things. I imagined were shot through with silver, just waiting to tear into werewolf hides.

“Why do you have all those?” Cat asked him, when she finally came out of the room and gave me a sheepish grin. “You look like you’re going into a jungle.”

“Never hurts to be safe,” Hunter said, tying his hair back with a bandana, and strapping a revolver to his hip. “I travel with this stuff, wherever I go. I promise, it isn’t like a special occasion thing. Come to see my best friend and his wife, so I come strapped – nothing like that. I just like to be ready.”

A slow grin crept across his face when he pulled something very long and dangerous-looking out of his duffel bag. It was another bag, inside of which, something clicked.

“Don’t tell me you have a segmented baton or something in there,” Damon said, his voice belying his utter disbelief. “I’m the one who lives here, and all I have is a shotgun, and a pocketknife.”

“That’s not all you have,” I said, grabbing one of his arms.

“Yeah,” he grinned. “I guess not.”

Damon gave a little flex and looked in the mirror, puckering his lips in a seductive sort of pose that made him look like something out of
Rocky Horror
.

“Uh,” I laughed. “Not that, you big jackass. The chains, out back.”

“Oh,” he said. “Yeah, of course. I knew what you meant.”

When Hunter finally presented the thing from the bag, Damon’s jaw hit the floor. “It is a goddamn ninja sword. You have a ninja sword, Hunter. What in the hell are you going to do with this?”

“Pretty sweet, huh?” Hunter said, clicking the scabbard to the blade and strapping it across his back. “Mind helping me?”

Damon shook with laughter, and then, he just exploded.

“You have a
ninja sword
!” he said. “Oh, my God, this is the best thing, ever! We’re going to fight some ancient evil and you’re taking a ninja sword.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Hunter said, waving his hand. “You’ll see. It’s strong, it’s silver, and it’ll cut. You’ll be sorry you don’t have a bad-ass ninja sword when it comes down to the line, I bet you anything.”

Damon just shook his head, and both of them started laughing.

I was glad – really glad – they were able to be so light and act like this. I had the feeling that they were both just deflecting their worry about what was to come, and I understood. Damon and Hunter relaxed their anxiety by bashing one another. And, I have to admit, it
was
pretty damn funny that he, apparently, carried a ninja sword around all the time. Just in case.

“One last thing,” Damon said, as he slid his hands into the thick leather gloves he used when he was riding. “I’m probably gonna deserve this for making fun of your sword, but could you help me with this?”

The thick leather cuff, that protected his forearm from the chain, was hard to wrestle on, but once it was in place, it didn’t move. Hunter did, of course, laugh at him, but helped Damon strap it down. When he was finished, he grabbed Damon’s hand.